This night was all about one thing: Rajon Rondo… and Rondo gave Celtics fans a taste of what might have been with a bit of a surprising Rondo performance that saw him shoot a lot, and well, to control a game with his scoring rather than his passing. The Celtics made their runs tonight, but the Mavs answered each shot with a bigger one en route to an ultimately easy win.
Rondo came out hot, hitting a layup, a pair of threes, and another layup to score Dallas’ first 10 points of the game, but the Celtics hung around getting a basket from each starter over the first 6 minutes. The Celtics got the lead down to 1 before a Dallas 8-0 run opened the lead back up to 9. Then Rondo kept going with his hot first quarter, hitting a buzzer beating 3 to finish the quarter with 15 points on 6-6 shooting, including 3-3 from 3.
The Dallas run grew to 17-0 as the Celtics fell behind by 18 before a Marcus Smart three broke the skid. The lead hung around there until an 8-0 run by the Celtics cut it to 11 with just under 4 minutes to go in the half. Zeller’s 7 point, 3 rebound quarter helped the C’s actually cut a point from the Mavs lead and go into the half down 13.
The Celtics whipped off another 8-0 run at the top of the third quarter to cut the lead to 7 as Rondo and the Mavs came out cold. The Mavs promptly erased that with an 8-0 run of their own. The game floated around a 13 point lead from there until a terrible stretch to end the quarter. The Mavs closed on a 17-1 run capped off by an embarrassing 3/4 court pass and uncontested dunk with 2 seconds on the clock. The Celtics gave up 92 points in 3 quarters and went into the 4th down 28 points.
The Celtics, to their credit, did not roll over… opening the 4th on a 7-0 run. That extended to 21-5 behind Tyler Zeller and Avery Bradley. Bradley cut the lead to 10 before a Rondo jumper stopped the run. The Celtics would get no closer as the Mavs pushed the lead back up as high as 21, thanks in part to a Rondo drive and career-high 5th 3. In the end, it goes down as a 119-101 loss.
The Green:
Avery Bradley’s 4th quarter: 17 points on 7-9 shooting to lead a comeback after the Celtics looked dead in the 3rd.
Zeller’s 17 and 10 in 25 minutes is an impressive line.
The Gross:
Rondo’s shooting, which is weird to see in this section… but when he’s doing it for the other team, it’s gross. The Celtics dared Rondo to shoot it, and he burned them by hitting a career-high 5 3’s while scoring 29 points on 12-19 shooting.
Avery Bradley’s 1st-3rd quarters, where he shot 2-11 for 5 points.
The Celtics defense vs. the Dallas offense is not a fair matchup. When Dallas applied itself, they went on big runs. The end of the third quarter was about as bad as it gets.
Once again, the Celtics got out to a slow start. You just can’t recover from being down 31-17 to a Western Conference contender.
The Grid:
- Rebounds: 52-38 Dallas
- Jeff Green: 18 points (7-15 fg), 6 rebounds, 2 assists
- Evan Turner: 9 points (3-7 fg), 3 assists
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